Spent Rounds
by Jameson Rook
Summary: She'd heard the stories. Between Maddie and Michael, she was still sure she hadn't heard them all, but she'd heard enough to know that he'd always looked out for his family. Then he'd looked out for Sam. For Jesse. For her. Who was going to look out for Michael? She knew that she couldn't watch his soul clatter to the floor, forgotten like spent rounds.


_**Disclaimer: Burn Notice and all of its characters belong to the USA Network. "Red" belongs to Taylor Swift.**_

**Loving him is live driving a new Maserati down a dead end street,**

**Faster than the wind, passionate as sin, ended so suddenly.**

**Loving him is like trying to change your mind **

**Once you're already flying through the free fall,**

**Like the colors in Autumn, so bright just before they lose it all.**

**Losing him was blue like I'd never known, missing him was dark grey all alone.**

**Forgetting him was like trying to know someone you've never met.**

**But loving him was red.**

**Loving him was red.**

Fiona bit into the kiss like she was starving, her hands clawing at Michael's biceps, trying to pull him as close as humanly possible. His fingers tore at the hem of her tank top before tugging it over her head. His teeth scraped over her oversensitized skin, drawing a rumbling moan from deep in her throat.

It had been so damned long since they had this chance. Prison. Deaths. Jobs. Anson. There had been so much keeping them apart that Michael hadn't had a chance to properly welcome her home. His teeth nipped at the salty skin covering her collar bone, the skin purpling under the pressure of his bite.

"Michael." She whimpered, her hands threading through his silky hair. He smirked against her skin as he moved his lips down her chest to capture a hardened nipple between his teeth. Her nails drug down his bare back, leaving a trail of blood droplets in their wake. "We should probably move this inside." She whispered, leaning down to capture his ear lobe between her teeth.

Michael chuckled low in his throat and glanced around the balcony before nodding and grasping her hand in his, pulling her into the loft. Fiona leaned in to kiss him, but just as Michael had leaned forward to give her a kiss, she pushed him away with enough force to send him stumbling backward.

He stared at her, confusion written on his face. Fiona didn't say anything, she simply reached up and shook her hair from the bun on her head until it fell onto her shoulders, and gave him a predatory grin.

She swept her foot around the back of his calf and he fell to the bed, bouncing softly on the mattress. Michael quirked an eyebrow as he propped himself up on his elbows, watching her stalk across the loft with a swagger that only she could posses.

Fiona stepped out of her jeans and blue lace panties, her bare feet padding across the floor silently. She crawled up his body like a jungle cat, her muscles shifting under her skin. She nipped at the soft patch of skin just above the button on his jeans before unbuttoning them and slipping her warm hand inside.

She would never tire of the red hot rush of breath that escaped his lips every time their heated flesh met. It was one of the things that she had always missed when he had left the first time...

**Touching him is like realizing all you ever wanted was right in front of you.**

**Memorizing him was as easy as knowing all the words to your old favorite song.**

**Fighting with him was like trying to solve a crossword,**

**And realizing there's no right answer.**

**Regretting him was like wishing you never found out love could be that strong.**

**Losing him was blue like I'd never known, missing him was dark grey all alone.**

**Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you've never met.**

**But loving him was red.**

**Oh, red, burning red.**

Michael had always been the best lover she'd ever had. He was a perfect contrast to her. He was hard in all the places she was soft, he was rough where she was (in rare instances) gentle. He was the yin to her yang, and she had been utterly broken when she'd woken to find cold sheets and no trace of the man that she had fallen so completely in love with. Her shattered cries echoed across the emerald fields of Ireland as she prayed for him to come back. But that was then.

And now? Now, he was writhing underneath her hands, and her tongue as she lapped away the salty tang of his arousal from his tip. His fingers fisted in her hair, urging her to take him fully into her mouth. She complied, swallowing all the way around him until he reached the back of her throat. The low moan that she gave rumbled all the way through his body, causing his fingers to tighten on her shoulders.

"Fuck, Fi." He growled, his hips thrusting upward. She sucked harder around him, smirking around his length, until he let out a low whine and pulled her up to his mouth, kissing her soundly. The salty tang of his own taste mixed with the dark, exotic taste that was purely Michael when his tongue slipped past her lips and flicked over her own sensually.

He shimmied out of his pants and flipped their postions. He couldn't help the grin that came to his face at the sound of the loud gasp Fiona let out. His teeth bit into the soft flesh of her stomach, leaving the imprint of his teeth in the flesh and drawing a squeak from her as he moved lower. He nuzzled the silken flesh inside her thigh before his tongue flattened against her core, flicking over the sensitive nerve bundle there and drawing a feral growl from Fiona.

"Keep still." He snarled against her wet warmth. He flattened his hand against her stomach, holding her hips to the mattress as he continued to run his tongue over her. She had always loved the way that his tongue moved against her skin. The rough ridges of his taste buds, rubbing against her skin at a torturously slow pace; It was always slow with Michael. He made love the same way that he did everything else, with methodic, precise, calculated movements.

In minutes, he had her writhing and whimpering his name like a whispered prayer, her hands clutching strands of his hair or the creases of the sheet beneath their naked, sweat slicked bodies.

"Michael," She whimpered, desperately trying to arch her back up against his hand, but he held her fast against the bed and nipped the bundle of nerves roughly. She gasped and cried out his name as she gushed against him, warm and thick on his tongue. He held her through the aftershocks of her climax before crawling up her body, placing feather light kisses along her torso and up the column of her neck.

Her fingers dug into his hair, holding him close, as she grinned and kissed the top of his head. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her to his chest, kissing her deeply with a smirk.

"Mmm. You remember the day in Belfast that we spent the entire day in bed?" She whispered into the tendrils of his hair. He chuckled into the crook of her neck, running his tongue over the sweat salted skin there, the chemical tang of perfume hovering there.

"I caught hell for that, you know. I was supposed to be out running an errand for the op, instead I was in your apartment, enforcing your religion." She quirked an eyebrow at him, groaning softly when his tip brushed over her entrance. "I may be wrong, but I recall the phrase 'oh, God' being screamed quite a few times. Way I remember it, that was the closest you came to confession in years." He winked, slipping into her in one smooth thrust.

Any response that she had about his statement of their past was lost in the breathless gasp that he swallowed with a sensual kiss. That's the way that it had always been with them. It was like an assasination of their willpower with a silenced weapon. Fast, dangerous, and deadly.

Michael stilled for half a second, allowing her to adjust to him until she wiggled against him and growled a muffled 'move' into the abyss of his kiss. He chuckled and began thrusting. Their skin slid together as he moved, electricity crackling between them as they both moved closer to the edge of ecstasy. Her teeth sunk into the flesh of his shoulder, drawing a groan from Michael. He continued to thrust into her until they both collapsed over the edge, riding through their climax together before falling to the bed against one another.

**Remembering him comes in flashback and echoes,**

**Tell myself it's time no, gotta let go,**

**But moving on from him is impossible when I see it all in my head,**

**Burning red.**

**Darling, it was red.**

**Losing him it was blue like I'd never known, missing him was dark grey all alone.**

**Forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you've never met. **

**'Cause loving him was red, yeah, yeah, red.**

**We're burning red.**

When the sun crested the horizon and the Miami working class rolled out of bed to get on to their daily lives, Michael was watching. When they commuted, when they ate their ninety-nine cent heart attack lunch, when they suffered through their menial desk jobs, attempting not to go postal, he was watching. It was in his training, but more than that, it was in his blood.

And when Michael was watching the world, Fiona was watching Michael. Someone had to make sure that he didn't lose himself in the tangled web of lies that the world around him always seemed to be weaving around him. The crease in his forehead as he watched the world around him, the sun reflecting off his bare chest, clad in nothing but faded blue jeans was enough to put a knot of sadness in her stomach. She knew where his mind was.

She could distract his body for a night, possibly even a morning, but she could never distract his mind. The guilt that hovered there took away something from _him_. He was still the man that she'd fallen in love with all of those years ago as he moved her effortlessly around the dance floor in that pub, but there was something in his personality that had bled out on the concrete that day that his brother had slipped through his fingers.

She saw the ghost of Michael Westen hovering in the pew at the church during Nate's service. She'd watched him lean down and kiss his little brother on the forehead. She'd heard the stories. Between Maddie and Michael, she was still sure she hadn't heard them all, but she'd heard enough to know that he'd always looked out for his family. Then he'd looked out for Sam. For Jesse. For her.

Who was going to look out for Michael? She tried, she tried the best that she could, but there was only so much that she could do when he wouldn't let her help. Stubborn bastard. However, his stubbornness aside, she knew that she needed to do _something_.

__She knew that she couldn't watch his soul clatter to the floor, forgotten like spent rounds.

**And that's why he's spinning 'round in my head,**

**Comes back to me, burning red.**

**Yeah, yeah.**

**'Cause love was like driving a new Maserati down a dead end street...**


End file.
